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| DownUnder | March 2006 |
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The Cowboy Kickbacks | ||
The Cole Commission of Inquiry into allegations that the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) and other Australian companies paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime has established conclusively that AWB did pay around $300 million to the Hussein regime, primarily in fees to a Jordan trucking company which then extracted a commission and passed the principal on to the Iraqis. Former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge (pictured above), who denies being aware of the payments, also received around $1 million (for an eight month contract) from the Australian Federal government as a top adviser in Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority after 2003. Evidence also suggests that Mr Flugge "may have used his position while working on the Howard government's payroll in Baghdad to install an Iraqi trade official implicated in kickbacks in a post-war trade ministry job". Then, lo and behold, BHP Billiton gets dragged into the Inquiry, for funding an "$8 million shipment of wheat to Iraq in 1996 in a bid to win petroleum exploration rights in the country. BHP then shifted the debt to its affiliate, Tigris Petroleum, which in turn approached AWB to recover the debt, a plan which contravened sanctions imposed on Iraq". OK, so we now know that these guys had been slipping Saddam illicit funds, so that they could sell Iraq stuff through the UN Oil-For-Food program. But wasn't there any Australian government oversight? Well, yes and no, according to the Inquiry and press responses from our glorious politicians. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, sometime dubbed Lord Downer of Baghdad, was first warned six years ago that "AWB may have been paying bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime". In an amazing display of political chutzpah, Downer claims that "the government had been aware for some time about concerns relating to AWB's wheat contracts in Iraq but they had always been fully investigated". All I can say is that they must have been shit-hot investigations... Not to be outdone, Prime Minister John Howard went on to defend the gun-toting Trevor Flugge's $1 million contract, because it was a "challenging and dangerous" job. Here's a quote from an interview with Howard on Sky News defending Mr Flugge. Try to keep your lunch down :)
In Federal Parliamanet, amidst claims and counterclaims of fraud, incompetence and lying, the government is sticking to its own peculiar guns – it knew "nothing at all" about any kickback payments to Saddam Hussein. Yeah, right, and the Catholic Church doesn't take money... The only Opposition parliamentarian with any wit, Labor's Kevin Rudd MP, suggested the Howard government may be having a "Sergeant Schultz" moment – a joke based on the character in the Hogan's Heroes sitcom famous for "knowing nothing". Howard immediately responded with "It's not a Sergeant Schultz situation. How can it be a Sergeant Schultz situation if we have an eminent lawyer who is conducting a thorough investigation and is receiving full cooperation from the government?" What Howard failed to mention is that the Cole Commission of Inquiry has no power to find fault with any government departments over the scandal, but it can find fault with any private company it chooses, recommending anything up to and including criminal charges. What, you say? This Inquiry can only look at private companies and is blocked from investigating government involvement? You've got it, Sherlock. It's a government whitewash designed to convince the Americans that Australia is doing something about the scandal, rigged to frame the private company operators and get the Australian wheat industry back into Iraq as soon as possible... So what has been the response from the Australian public? Well, at least they're not buying the government waffle. As you can see from the graphic below, the majority of us know that the government has been up to its buttocks in this scam, and is now predictably lying it's collective tits off, with a straighter face than Charlton Heston in Moses after he got his hair colour change from the Burning Bush.
So, what's happening now? Well, we have to wait until the Cole Inquiry puts out its final "whitewash" document, berating all the thieves, crooks and liars at AWB (and perhaps BHP), and ignoring all the thieves, crooks and liars in government. Meanwhile, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile has made a flash visit to Iraq to visit his mate, and "on-again, off-again" US favourite, the convicted fraud and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi. This is the guy who has been indicted in Jordan for bank fraud and fed New York Times writer Judith Miller utter bullshit on Iraq's weapons programme, which she dutifully wrote up (and the New York Times printed) as fact. Mark Vaile, on the other hand, is the guy Prime Minister John Howard sent to negotiate the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which, after a good 12 months, has shown an absolute loss for Australia. With Vaile and Chalabi in the same room, you'd have to wonder where the third stooge is... Anyway, enough from me until next month, when there'll be another spray :) | ||
Ian McPherson |
